October 28, 2012

I had a few days of dazzling, low angled light coming through my north facing studio windows this week. It gave me a good look at the claw’s reflection on the high/gloss paper strategically placed for capturing it. I stopped work on the claw and focused on painting that lovely ghost image of it from this light source that is unique to late Oct. during days of full sun, between 12:30 – 2:00PM.
Shadows and reflections are just as visually interesting to me as the objects, and just as important to the success of a composition.

2 thoughts on “October 28, 2012”

Your work has always given us wonderful shadows and/or reflections which enlarges the realistic dimension of your work. How dependent are you on natural light in your studio? The thin sunlight of winter is so different from the intense sun of summer. Does this matter? I have followed your work for years and loved every subject you have touched. Janie Hegstrom

Thank you for your question & your very supportive comment — so rewarding to have a painting be received the way it was conceived.
I have surrounding windows which offer natural light sources from every direction in my studio — so have the option to eliminate what I don’t want, or use them all. Because reflections and shadows change as fast as clouds on windy days, I make sketches of the ones I like, then paint composite shadows and reflections. I want them to be very believable, (real), but I’m not concerned with real accuracy — as in the shutter-speed of a photograph. That describes what I mean by the difference between “hyper-realized” and photo realism. Stephanie

2 thoughts on “October 28, 2012”

Your work has always given us wonderful shadows and/or reflections which enlarges the realistic dimension of your work. How dependent are you on natural light in your studio? The thin sunlight of winter is so different from the intense sun of summer. Does this matter? I have followed your work for years and loved every subject you have touched. Janie Hegstrom

Thank you for your question & your very supportive comment — so rewarding to have a painting be received the way it was conceived.
I have surrounding windows which offer natural light sources from every direction in my studio — so have the option to eliminate what I don’t want, or use them all. Because reflections and shadows change as fast as clouds on windy days, I make sketches of the ones I like, then paint composite shadows and reflections. I want them to be very believable, (real), but I’m not concerned with real accuracy — as in the shutter-speed of a photograph. That describes what I mean by the difference between “hyper-realized” and photo realism. Stephanie